page_title: French invasion of Russia
section_title: Weather as a factor
hierarchical_section_title: French invasion of Russia / Weather as a factor
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Nächtlicher Biwak der Armee Napoleons während des Rückzugs aus Russland im Jahre 1812. Ölgemälde auf Leinwand. Historische Museum, Moskau, Russland. English: The Night Bivouac of the Napoleon Army during retreat from Russia in 1812. Oil on canvas. Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia. Русский: Ночной привал великой армии
context_page_description: The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 and in France as the Russian campaign, began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian Army. Napoleon hoped to compel the Emperor of All Russia, Alexander I, to cease trading with British merchants through proxies in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace. The official political aim of the campaign was to liberate Poland from the threat of Russia. Napoleon named the campaign the Second Polish War to gain favor with the Poles and to provide a political pretext for his actions.
  At the start of the invasion, the Grande Armée numbered around 685,000 soldiers. It was the largest army ever known to have been assembled in the history of European warfare up to that point. Through a series of long marches Napoleon pushed his army rapidly through Western Russia in an attempt to destroy the Russian Army, winning a number of minor engagements and a major battle, the Battle of Smolensk in August.
context_section_description: Following the campaign a saying arose that the Generals Janvier and Février (January and February) defeated Napoleon, alluding to the Russian Winter.  Although the campaign was over by mid-November, there is some truth to the saying.  The coming winter weather was heavy on the minds of Napoleon's closest advisers. The army was equipped with summer clothing, and did not have the means to protect themselves from the cold. In addition, it lacked the ability to forge caulkined shoes for the horses to enable them to walk over roads that had become iced over. The most devastating effect of the cold weather upon Napoleon's forces occurred during their retreat. Hypothermia coupled with starvation led to the loss of thousands. In his memoir, Napoleon's close adviser Armand de Caulaincourt recounted scenes of massive loss, and offered a vivid description of mass death through hypothermia:
  The cold was so intense that bivouacking was no longer supportable. Bad luck to those who fell asleep by a campfire!  Furthermore, disorganization was perceptibly gaining ground in the Guard.  One constantly found men who, overcome by the cold, had been forced to drop out and had fallen to the ground, too weak or too numb to stand.  Ought one to help them along – which practically meant carrying them? They begged one to let them alone.  There were bivouacs all along the road – ought one to take them to a campfire? Once these poor wretches fell asleep they were dead.  If they resisted the craving for sleep, another passer-by would help them along a little farther, thus prolonging their agony for a short while, but not saving them, for in this condition the drowsiness engendered by cold is irresistibly strong.  Sleep comes inevitably, and sleep is to die. I tried in vain to save a number of these unfortunates.  The only words they uttered were to beg me, for the love of God, to go away and let them sleep. To hear them, one would have thought sleep was their salvation. Unhappily, it was a poor wretch's last wish. But at least he ceased to suffer, without pain or agony.  Gratitude, and even a smile, was imprinted on his discoloured lips.  What I have related about the effects of extreme cold, and of this kind of death by freezing, is based on what I saw happen to thousands of individuals.  The road was covered with their corpses.
  — Caulaincourt
  This befell a Grande Armée that was ill-equipped for cold weather. The Russians, properly equipped, considered it a relatively mild winter – Berezina river was not frozen during the last major battle of the campaign; the French deficiencies in equipment caused by the assumption that their campaign would be concluded before the cold weather set in were a large factor in the number of casualties they suffered. However, the outcome of the campaign was decided long before the weather became a factor.
  Inadequate supplies played a key role in the losses suffered by the army as well. Davidov and other Russian campaign participants record wholesale surrenders of starving members of the Grande Armée even before the onset of the frosts. Caulaincourt describes men swarming over and cutting up horses that slipped and fell, even before the poor creature had been killed. There were even eyewitness reports of cannibalism. The French simply were unable to feed their army.  Starvation led to a general loss of cohesion. Constant harassment of the French Army by Cossacks added to the losses during the retreat.
  Though starvation and the winter weather caused horrendous casualties in Napoleon's army, losses arose from other sources as well. The main body of Napoleon's Grande Armée diminished by a third in just the first eight weeks of the campaign, before the major battle was fought. This loss in strength was in part due to desertions, the need to garrison supply centers, casualties sustained in minor actions and to diseases such as diphtheria, dysentery and typhus. The central French force under Napoleon's direct command crossed the Niemen River with 286,000 men. By the time they fought the Battle of Borodino the force was reduce
caption: The night bivouac of Napoleon's army during the retreat from Russia
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